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China's Internet Censoring. Hate To Say I Told You So, But I Told You So....

By Dan Harris and Steve Dickinson

Back when the media was getting all hot and heavy (sexual reference intended) on China's plans to require internet filtering software, I did a post, entitled, "Two China Things Of Which We Dare Not Speak (And Sex Is Not One of Them)." In that post, I explained why we virtually never write about proposed laws and why I had not written anything on the filtering software. I gave the following reasons: I do not like writing about proposed laws for the following reasons:

1. There are so many laws already on the books and being enforced that need coverage more. Laws on the books will impact you right now. Proposed laws may or may not ever come into being. 2. China has a very real habit of saying it will institute a new law and then never doing so. It floats new laws to gauge reaction. If the reaction is negative, the law oftentimes never comes into being. 3. China has a very real habit of instituting new laws and then never enforcing them. This often happens when the new law is negatively received.

Today, China officially backed down (no surprise). Or, in the words of the immortal Gilda Radner, Never mind. China is billing it as a delay, but I can virtually guarantee this software will never be heard from again. I say this for two reasons. One, the people did not like it and Beijing does NOT want to go against the people on something like this. Since there is absolutely no reason to believe the people will ever start liking something like this, there is absolutely no reason to believe the software will return. Two, I know movement has been slow, and I know it has been in fits and starts, but if we were to draw a straight line through the rises and falls, freedom is on a fairly inexorable march in China. We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming....

Full post as published by China Law Blog on June 30, 2009 (boomark / email).